There is also an ignorance issue of actual platforms. A very large chunk of people couldn't actually tell you which candidate has which position beyond a few dog whistle type subjects. You saw this with the Affordable Care Act where they had polls/surveys that had a large number of people that didn't like it. If they broke out the things the act addressed one by one nearly everything got overwhelming support but the people didn't recognize it as part of the thing they just said they hated.
So perhaps rather than stupidity it's a matter of education. Of course to get educated you have to be willing to listen. Not being willing to listen and simply towing a party line because that's what your family does perhaps is just stupid.
There is also another issue. Americans as a whole have a much more pronounced "what is good for me is the only thing that matters" streak. Most other industrialized countries have a population that will give ample consideration to the populace as a whole and will be willing to take a personal hit to better the overall community. To me that is often missing in the US.
I don't mind that the voters don't know what the candidates position is, what scares the bejesus out of me is that Trump hasn't got a clue what his position is on any of these subjects.
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Definitely a reasonable man that we should all listen to. Complaints of shadow banning, cries of first amendment rights being violated, and accusations of that being treason? Those guys really have no clue what freedom of speech is.
Where do you see any of that? All I see is that, apparently, every mean tweet aimed at him contains a "tell" that shows "cognitive dissonance".
I would also note that most people seem not to know what freedom of speech is.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Where do you see any of that? All I see is that, apparently, every mean tweet aimed at him contains a "tell" that shows "cognitive dissonance".
I would also note that most people seem not to know what freedom of speech is.
It's in his feed, just scroll a bit. It started with him being upset about alleged shadow banning by twitter, then him "hulking out" by melting down. I say hulking out because he posted a little gif of angry hulk. His complaints of considering that treason are right there.
Can someone remind me why we care what a cartoonist thinks of politics? I don't recall checking to see what Bill Watterson thought about elections.
Twitter does have a history of shadow banning people, so that part at least is not really shocking to me. It's operated in highly ideologically charged fashion.
I'm not even sure he's a cartoonist anymore. Is Dilbert still a thing? He's more of a blogger.
Incidentally, though, I would definitely care what Bill Watterson thinks about basically anything.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I'm not sure if the following are causes or symptoms but I would say the driving factors are the following
Authoritarianism is one factor. People who are authoritarians in times of fear look toward a strong man to deliver them. I think this is the driving psychological behaviour pushing people towards trump.
Fear mongering of media - In general all media has pushed the world is more dangerous mantra despite all indicators showing this to be false.
The loss of the economic viability of small town, 1 factory, America.
The ability of likeminded people to self isolate. One of the biggest factors in fighting authoritarianism is having people exposed to people who are different. Attending a university decreases people Authoritarianess the theory being that being exposed to differing view points makes people in general more open to them even if they don't agree with them. So the past 8 years have moved to a more curated social and media experience have decreased people's exposure to differences.
The cult of celebrity continuing to increase
The loss of faith in institutions -- Government, media, science. This is seen on the both left and right anti-vas, anti-gmo, climate change hoax, etc.
One problem is I don't see easy fixes to these things.
This brings up a question..
1. Are whites males in America losing rights?
2. IF YES, is fighting for those lost rights deemed racist/sexist?
examples could be anything from war on christmas to work/university quotas
__________________
Watching the Oilers defend is like watching fire engines frantically rushing to the wrong fire
It's on his blog, he's saying twitter shadowbanning him (which is a real thing, and shadowbanning occurs because the tweet patterns match filters for too many hashtags or spam or whatever) is a suppression of his free speech and treasonous for reasons that appear circular.
He also says that shadowbanning him would be 'breach of fiduciary responsibility' because I guess he thinks his contributions to twitter are worth some significant portion of Twitter's net worth I guess?
He's giving twitter a 2 day ultimatum to respond to him otherwise he'll decide twitter is an attack on American values and he will be obligated to help kill twitter.
In other words he's trying to be part of Trump's cabinet.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Can someone post the tweet where he says it's treason? That sounds funny and I can't find it amidst allegations of cognitive dissonance.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
^^People are stupid is likely the correct answer though. I don't think it's a coincidence the divisiveness of the country has coincided with the decline in America's ranking in the world when it comes to things like math, reading and science. If Trump's core is taken as the indicator, 25-35% of Americans believe Michelle Obama is actual Michael, Barack is gay, and Sasha and Malia are actually orphans from Morocco or somewhere else in north Africa. Not sure what other answer leads to that other than stupidity (ignorance I guess).
Maybe lead is also part of the problem. leaded gasoline when it was in, lead paint. Lead bullets. Whatever.
1. Are whites males in America losing rights?
2. IF YES, is fighting for those lost rights deemed racist/sexist?
1. I think they (some) think so. I think it's just that when everyone else gains rights to approach equality, the perception could be that I'm losing rights.
2. Yes when those "lost" rights are nothing more than the disparity between a race/sex that's being equalized.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
